How soft is your heart?

These past few weeks I have been thinking of what makes for a hard heart!!!
Often I am cynical towards people or situations and have been doubting Gods provision or presence and realised that's my heart hardening!!

A lovely friend and I were talking together in my kitchen about how easily we forget all God has done for us and suddenly the story of the Israelites popped into my head!

In Exodus 13 we read how Moses had been called by God to go up the mountain and were not told how long he was up there but the Israelites obviously got fed up of waiting so they start saying to each other well Gods gone quiet let's make our own God to worship and they collect all the gold the can find, melt it and make a golden calf!
Moses comes down having met with God and sees them worshiping a huge lump of metal!!

These Israelites had forgotten that God had-
Rescued them from slavery
Made a path through a raging sea
Gave the a daily feast of manna and quail and
Provided fresh water out of a rock!

There hearts had grown hard maybe because they had become impatient for Gods timing and definitely because they had forgotten His faithfulness in the past!

This really challenged me as this last week I had definitely forgotten all that God had done for me and so had become despondent!  My sister reminded me of all the ways He had been faithful and it softened my heart and I began to recall his goodness and started trusting again!

A lovely lady once said she asked God to show her heart and it helped her to see the areas in her life that needed to change!

Not forgiving doesn't affect the person who your angry against it effects you and leads to  bitterness. Selfishness, resentment and not been thankful  all leads to hardness of hearts.

I don't know about you but I want a soft heart where God can speak into and where I can grow intimate with him!